


Five Years Since You Left Boston

by AlwaysMyChoices



Series: I'm Just Calling to... [2]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Exes, F/M, Star-crossed, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28080411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysMyChoices/pseuds/AlwaysMyChoices
Summary: It’s been six years since Charlotte Greene finished her residency, five years since she left Ethan, and four years since she called him the night of her wedding and asked him to stop her. Ethan thought he was protecting her when he let her go, but a chance encounter might just tempt fate in their direction...
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart), Main Character (Open Heart)/Original Character(s)
Series: I'm Just Calling to... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057130
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Five Years Since You Left Boston

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to an HC about MC marrying someone else

Ethan thought he saw Charlie that morning.

It was just a glimpse – a flash of blonde hair and a hint of laughter wandering through the hospital halls. It couldn’t be her, of course. She hadn’t stepped foot in Boston in five years.

Or maybe she had.

Maybe she walked these hallowed streets every single day, a lingering ghost forever out of sight.

Maybe this city welcomed its open arms in secret. Maybe the specter of their relationship left her untouched. Maybe she could travel all the paths she’d traveled with him without even an inkling of hurt.

Perhaps she visited and never even had the urge to find him, not that Ethan could say the same. But Charlie, his darling Rookie, had always been stronger than him.

She was the one who dared to demand more of him. She was courageous enough to wage war, one they both lost. Then, when Ethan held on to the frayed and damaged hope of a spectacular reunion, she was strong enough to leave. She left Boston, Edenbrook, and even Ethan. She made a new life for herself, and when Ethan couldn’t fathom the thought of another, she was brave enough to fall in love again.

She had one moment of weakness.

One shining opportunity for two star-crossed lovers to finally make it right.

That night, Ethan was strong for her.

His reward was aching regret and a lifetime of “what ifs?” He faltered nearly every day in that first year. He bought at least a dozen flights to California, but he never boarded a plane. Every time he looked at her wedding picture – the one he printed to remind himself of what he would ruin if he found her.

She was married now.

She had been for about four years.

Ethan heard that they had a child, too.

He had no real claim to her anymore, but he could never feel any less “hers.” Despite a string of half-hearted attempts, he could never belong to anyone else.

It was fitting, really. He lost her because he couldn’t love her enough, and now he loved her so that the very feeling felt like a lifelong companion. If he couldn’t have Charlie, at least he had her memory. If he couldn’t make her happy himself, at least he knew she was happy somewhere else with someone else.

Ethan lived in the same daydream Charlie conjured the day she married Alex Rosen. That’s all he knew about her now, save for the pieces of gossip that spread through the hospital in her absence.

Oh, if he could have known.

And if she could have, too.

They both imagined the other in fictional worlds of their own design. Charlie pictured him back in Boston, living the very same life he lived before she wandered into his world. The same apartment, the same job, the same office, and the same booming disapproval when an intern made a mistake. She didn’t dare change the picture. She wasn’t a big enough person to fancy him as a grown, better person with a great love. It was selfish. She knew it was, but she didn’t like to think of him improving in her absence. She wanted to blame their separation on his inability to improve, after all.

Even if she wore another man’s last name, Ethan lingered in her life. She felt his influence every day she mentored or taught an intern. His was the voice that motivated her, that implored her to dig deeper. She read his research still, and he read hers.

At times, he felt closer than the husband who slept beside her.

But what could one expect from a life built on the sand of a daydream?

Or of a marriage built on the falsity of an empty fantasy?

Ethan, who fancied himself as the man who knew it all, knew nothing.

He didn’t even know that that glimmer of familiarity that morning had been her, after all.

He was ignorant of her return.

Or, he _was_.

Even without Ethan’s knowledge, her return was quite an event.

Sienna and Elijah, the only two to have stayed in Boston, organized the whole thing. Bryce and Kyra flew in from Miami while Aurora took the train from New York. Jackie was the last to arrive, bemoaning delays from D.C. They hadn’t all been in the same room since Charlie’s wedding, and silently, they thought it was fitting they were all together now. In spite of the somber reality, they made their weekend together something quite beautiful and warm.

They revisited all the things Charlie missed – save for one.

They toured their old apartment, which was available for rent after another group of young friends let it go. They visited all of old Charlie’s old haunts, even the halls of Edenbrook. They had a group dinner in Sienna’s apartment, and they caught each other up on their lives.

Bryce and Kyra were engaged now, though they were so busy seeking new adventures that they hadn’t bothered to set a date. Aurora was the head of a diagnostics department in New York, and Jackie dedicated herself to research and healthcare reform to compensate for the mistakes of her youth. Sienna was married now, and her friends were comforted that only the best man in the world could deserve her. Likewise, Elijah had a wife and a son.

And then Charlie…

She didn’t need to catch them up. They already knew.

That night, they crowded into a tiny booth in Donahue’s.

The entire time, Charlie eyed the door and wondered what it would be like to see Ethan walk through the door.

She should have known not to taunt fate like that.

The first time Ethan and Charlie saw each other after five years apart should have been monumental. Out of respect for the significance of the moment, the world should have lurched to stillness, and time should have slipped beyond their grasp. Everything should have been distant but them – but _each other_.

But it wasn’t anything like that.

Charlie was in the bathroom when Ethan walked into Donahue’s, and by the time she came out, he was seated at the bar with his back to his former interns. She was so oblivious that, as she sat down, she checked one more time to see if it was Ethan coming through the door.

It came as an inkling.

A familiar laugh behind him. A recognizable voice, and a feeling that he knew that sound. He heard it so many times back in the good old days, when he’d find his favorite resident tossing back drinks with her friend while she waited for his arrival so they could go home together.

If he were honest, he would admit that he paused before looking over his shoulder to check. He wasn’t sure what he was hiding from – the possibility that it was her or the possibility that it wasn’t.

Either way, he looked.

Reason evaporated. Ethan knew it couldn’t be Charlie, not here and not now. But something beyond rationality and logic knew that it was.

It was the eyes.

Even in the dark haze of the dive bar, he recognized the spark in her eyes.

It was quite an experience to appraise the love of your life from across a bar with the knowledge that you’d had the possibility of a life together but had let it slip away.

Ethan didn’t quite know how to explain the swell of his chest, but he knew that he would have happily spent the rest of his life staring from afar if it meant staying in this warmth.

She was different. Older, wiser, and more confident. She was almost the age Ethan was when he first met her. He could tell that all her best traits – her compassion, her dedication, her intelligence – were only stronger now, a more solidified part of her once the indecision and fear of her youth settled.

_It’s time to leave_ , something whispered in the back of his mind. He had seen her. He didn’t get to do more than that, not when she had a family on the other side of the country.

But he didn’t leave. He selfishly clung to her, thinking he could have just a few more moments before he needed to go.

He took too long.

Charlie heard a round of applause as a nearby party made an impressive shot on the dartboard, claiming her attention. As her eyes wandered to the cheering interns and their dartboard, they found something far more precious.

Seeing Ethan again wasn’t anything like she imagined.

Almost a decade after stumbling into his life, it was impossible to separate the man from the folklore surrounding him. It had been five years since Charlie unceremoniously stormed out of Boston, and she thought that time may have made her ambivalent. She worried she would be overcome with emotion and that everything would crack and splinter.

It wasn’t like that, though.

Seeing Ethan Ramsey felt like _home_ , like he hadn’t dared to leave her this entire time.

It was startling. Almost horrifying. And certainly more than she could process.

So, she instinctually averted her eyes as if she could ever forget that he was just a few feet away.

Just like that, she was a bride hiding in a hotel bathroom, calling her ex-boyfriend from thousands of miles away and praying he would give her a reason to call it all off.

The rejection stung so deeply that Ethan wondered if his very being would fall apart.

Not that he could blame her. He was the one who rejected her so many years ago. He was the one who missed every opportunity to commit and keep her in his life. He was the reason they were on opposite sides of the bar tonight.

Ethan stared down his scotch, and he promised himself to leave once he drained the glass. So, naturally, he drank very, very slowly.

An hour later, he was still staring at a quarter-full glass.

Charlie’s night was winding down. Her friends were adults now, save for Bryce and Kyra at times. They had responsibilities, and they were tired. It was time to go home. They would just see each other in the morning.

Tonight’s goodbye was extended. They put on their coats slowly, and they indulged in last-minute conversations. They wandered to the door exceptionally slowly. No one really wanted to let Charlie go.

In the end, it was just Sienna and Charlie, walking arm-in-arm. Sienna begged Charlie to give up her hotel room for the night and have a big sleepover at her apartment instead. She even promised to make Charlie’s favorite cookies as an incentive. Against her better judgment, Charlie said no and watched Sienna take the first cab that came by.

It really shouldn’t have been difficult to leave – to leave Ethan.

She had already left him. They chose lives apart from one another. A chance run-in shouldn’t have been anything more than that.

So, why did she walk back into Donahue’s? Why did she feel compelled to approach the bar? Why couldn’t she breathe when she came face-to-face with Ethan?

And maybe most of all, why didn’t he stop her five years ago?

She felt an urge to run now that she faced him. Perhaps this was a terrible, terrible idea.

“Hi,” Charlie blurted out.

Ethan stared, wide-eyed, and he absently responded, “Hi.”

It didn’t feel real, not even as Reggie, the bar owner, recognized Charlie and approached with a friendly face.

“Charlie, is that you?” he asked, scotch bottle in hand.

“Yes, it is,” Charlie smiled, “I can’t believe you remember me.”

Reggie waved her off, “It’s not often this guy finds someone willing to sit beside him, especially as often as you did,” Reggie passively waved in Ethan’s direction, making Charlie’s friendly smile faltered. As if he didn’t notice, he asked, “So, what happened to you? I heard you moved away.”

“I did,” Charlie confirmed, “To San Francisco.”

“Well, welcome back,” Reggie said, “Can I get you a drink?”

Charlie looked in Ethan’s direction, silently asking if she should say yes.

“You should,” Ethan murmured.

Charlie bore another friendly smile as she requested another mojito, but it fell slightly as she awkwardly took the seat beside Ethan at the bar.

For what felt like an eternity, they were silent.

“So… you’re back,” Ethan finally commented.

“For a little while, yeah,” Charlie picked at the thread on her jacket.

There were so many questions to ask – so many things Ethan wanted to know – that he didn’t know where to begin.

“What brings you to the east coast?”

“Um…” Charlie hesitated.

She didn’t want to say it.

“Just time to get out of the sun, I think,” Charlie evaded, taking the distraction of Reggie returning with her mojito.

Ethan nodded quietly.

“I heard you had a child,” Ethan murmured. He thought saying something like that would take all of his strength, but it didn’t. He wanted to know. He wanted to hear about Charlie’s life, about what she loved.

“A daughter,” Charlie’s face warmed, “She’s almost three.”

Watching Charlie light up like that… Well, Ethan had a moment of solace that he had done the right thing.

“Is, um… Is she with your husband right now?” Ethan felt like he had to ask, if just to remind himself she had a husband.

“Oh… No. She’s with his mom.”

Ethan paused.

“Where is he then?”

_Where is he?_

Where is Alex?

The question lingering all day that everyone else wouldn’t dare ask.

“Well, Alex is in New York, somewhere,” Charlie thought back to his text with the itinerary. It was short and told her only what she needed to know, which wasn’t much. “He was apartment shopping this morning. Then, to NYU so he could finish filling out some paperwork. But I don’t… I don’t know where he is now.”

 _And he doesn’t know where I am,_ she thought.

“You’re moving to New York?”

“No,” Charlie breathed, “Alex is.”

Oh.

Ethan’s eyes dropped down to the bar.

Charlie watched and realized he was too polite to ask more.

“I was moving to New York,” Charlie blurted out, feeling the need to explain herself, “We were both looking at jobs on the east coast, just to get a change in perspective, but things changed. We reached a point where a ‘change in perspective’ wasn’t enough, so we agreed to separate. Alex already had the job offer, and he wanted to take it. So, for now… Alex lives in New York, and we don’t.”

“For now?” Ethan asked, feeling an odd hope that she didn’t mean she was following him for reconciliation.

“I don’t want to raise our daughter on two different coasts, so I’m trying to figure that part out,” Charlie felt like she couldn’t even look at Ethan anymore.

It was shameful to admit that she’d rushed into marriage and couldn’t even make it to her fifth anniversary before it all fell apart. She let Ethan go in the name of a relationship that turned out to be nothing more than a mirage. She felt foolish and embarrassed. And disappointed, too.

“You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” Ethan offered.

Charlie looked at him with a playful, if dubious expression. Tilting her head, she asked, “You’re saying you don’t have any questions?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ethan waved Reggie down to order them another round, “I said you don’t have to talk about it. Those are two different things.”

Charlie found herself smiling. Something stirred in her chest – something she couldn’t touch.

“I heard you tried dating Harper again,” Charlie commented, feeling the freedom to make such a bold statement after sharing her own tragedy.

Ethan smirked, “Sienna told you?”

“Naveen, too,” Charlie smiled, turning her body to face him instinctively.

“He always loved hospital gossip.”

“I also heard it didn’t end particularly well.”

“Didn’t work, but we’re friends. She still invited me to her wedding, and when her wife is particularly generous, I have an invitation to dinner where I pretend that I didn’t sleep with her wife for years off-and-on.”

Charlie choked on her drink and failed to conceal her laughter, “Sounds like a success to me.”

Ethan liked to make her laugh. Still. After all this time.

“If it makes you feel better, you can ask a question. Any question,” Charlie offered.

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

Charlie looked down, wondering how on earth she was supposed to tell him. If he knew, she could forget any attempt at pretending to have moved on. Because, even when Alex missed the significance and her friends were too polite to notice, Ethan would know.

“Dolores Green Rosen,” Charlie admitted quietly.

“You named her Dolores?”

“I did,” Charlie bit her lower lip.

“And Alex knew?”

“Sort of,” Charlie stirred her drink to give something else to look at other than Ethan’s severe look of understanding, “I kept thinking of Dolores when I was pregnant, wondering if I would have made the same choice she did for my child. I still don’t know if I would have, but… I wanted to be as good of a mom as she was. I told Alex that I wanted to name our daughter after one of my first patients, and he understood, as long as I agreed to let him name our next baby,” Charlie almost chuckled. It was funny now to think back to a time when she thought she would spend the rest of her life next to Alex… “I just didn’t tell him that she was really _your_ patient.”

Ethan didn’t know how to sit with the fact that, as Charlie prepared for the birth of her first child, she still thought back to their time together.

“Well,” Ethan coughed awkwardly, “I’m sure you’re an amazing mother.”

“You’ve never even seen me with a child,” Charlie tilted her head questioningly.

“I don’t need to. The person who goes back for the green frog will be a good parent,” Ethan felt quite confident in his assessment.

“You went to get that frog, too.”

Ethan waved that off, “Present company excluded then.”

Charlie shrugged, knowing nothing good would come from pushing. And really, why should she? It’s not like she could magically transform Ethan into a new person – a father or a husband – just because she crossed his path. Five years separated them from those things, and she had to remind herself of that.

“I was determined to stay for her,” Charlie admitted, though she didn’t really know why, “I wanted her to have a good family, two parents and a dog and soccer practice after school. Alex and I didn’t know each other at all when we got married, but we agreed on that. That’s why I married him.”

She felt the urge to stop talking, but she ignored it.

Once it started, she couldn’t do anything but let it pour out.

“Getting to know someone was fun for a year, but then we had a baby and… Not knowing someone isn’t fun then. We realized we married our ideas about each other, not actually each other. It’s surprisingly difficult to make a marriage work like that, but we did. Until we realized that ‘making it work’ was actually just making us resent each other. Once we started fighting, there wasn’t a whole lot to hold on to. We could either stay together and fight all the time until we hated each other, which would be terrible for our daughter, or we could figure out how to be parents apart.”

Every word shattered a piece of Ethan’s ideal life for Charlie that, by the time she finished speaking, there was nothing left but broken glass.

He thought back to the wedding photo on his desk, the one he kept reminding himself not to call. It hadn’t been the beginning of a glorious life. A wedding band did nothing to conceal the flaws of a rushed marriage and overwhelming doubt.

He hadn’t sacrificed himself at the altar of her happiness. Instead, he chained them both to a morose existence plagued by “what if”s and missed opportunities.

It hadn’t been an act of selflessness. At best, it was misguided. At worst, it was cowardly.

With a myriad of sins and misgivings in mind, Ethan meaningfully said, “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

It was just three words, but the look on his face had the worth of so many more. Even if he never said it aloud, she knew what he meant, and she knew that, if she wanted to, she could accept it. She could take those three words and allow them to blanket all the hurt, rejection, and miscommunication. She could start over again with Ethan at her side.

But wasn’t that the problem?

Charlie spent so much time filling in the gaps of what he said and what he meant that it drove her to another state. She was always making something beautiful of something small.

Five years and a thousand tragedies later, and Ethan still couldn’t say more.

He still couldn’t ask her to stay. He still couldn’t promise anything, not really.

So, with a heavy heart, Charlie pushed the words away and didn’t allow them to forgive all his transgressions. Instead, she smiled sadly, and she thanked him. 

The night before her wedding, Ethan couldn’t tell her how much he loved her and wanted her in his life. Tonight, he still didn’t.

Even though he couldn’t give her what she wanted, Charlie stayed.

She savored the moments, knowing they were the last.

This wasn’t a night that would change everything, but it was a gift, an opportunity to sit beside the man she loved even if she couldn’t love him forever.

Ethan and Charlie stayed until the last call, when Reggie regrettably bid them farewell.

They stood apart on the sidewalk, separated by only a few feet in the bitter cold as they waited for their respective cars home.

The time for small talk had passed, and in the echoing silence, an opportunity whispered to them. The last call for all the tender words left unspoken…

Despite everything, Charlie wished he would say them, but Ethan didn’t know how.

There was so much time and distance that separated them. Perhaps this was nothing but false hope, and no real opportunity lurked in the exchange. Or maybe he was scared.

Charlie’s car was the first to arrive, and she greeted her driver with the heartbreaking realization that he still hadn’t said what she needed to hear. She chased her tears away as she turned back to Ethan, desperate for one last chance.

Couldn’t they try anyway? Even if it wouldn’t work, even if they were too far gone. Wasn’t it worth a try?

“Good night, Charlie,” Ethan breathed, fully aware he failed her. He thought the heart he was breaking was his own, but once again, he was too shortsighted to see the breaking woman in front of him.

“Goodbye, Ethan,” Charlie accepted defeat, a cold look of disappointment on her face.

Charlie didn’t even bother to look behind her to see if he followed her.

Not that it mattered because he didn’t.

He went home. He put his keys in the bowl next to the door, and he left his shoes by the doormat. He followed his nightly routine thoughtlessly like this night hadn’t been different at all. It was a sour way to say goodbye to her – by _not_ saying goodbye at all.

Everything felt different, but nothing actually was.

Ethan stared at the ceiling, waiting for the peace he built to follow, but it was shattered.

He was haunted by mistakes, and he lacked the grace of her happy ending to ease the blow.

His ideas of her paled in comparison to the woman herself, and now, he had nothing left to comfort himself with. Or rather, he had nowhere to hide. He faced himself and flinched at the reflection.

That night, he looked at her wedding picture – his physical reminder of her happy life – and it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t true. It was just another daydream, another safe place to hide when he wanted to evade something difficult.

He should have called.

He should have stopped her.

He should have loved her when he had the chance.

The wedding picture couldn’t stop him, so he had to ask himself if he was brave enough to actually call.

And at least right then, he was.

Charlie was in a hotel bathroom when she heard her phone ring, and Ethan was at home, evading sleep in bed. It was just like five years ago.

But this time, it was Ethan calling.

He was afraid he would lose his nerve, so as soon she accepted the call, he started speaking.

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Ethan blurted out, only aware she was on the other end by the sound of a gasp, “For everything. For pushing you away. For not stopping you. And for being a shitty person for two years before you left. You deserved more than I gave you, and I selfishly thought I could get away with less because you loved me. That was terrible and unfair, and you had every right to fight me. I should have just apologized.”

Ethan paused, and with an awareness he had never said it before, he added, “I should have said I love you, Charlie. Because I did, and I still do. I always will, and you deserve to know that. And I’m not calling to manipulate you or force you into an uncomfortable position, but I felt you should know.”

He was out of things to say, but he searched for words anyway because he feared what she would say next.

He feared having the courage just a little bit too late.

“Ethan…” Charlie held her breath, convinced the other shoe would drop and that this would fall apart. So, she waited, and she waited. But nothing happened.

He didn’t take it back. He didn’t run away, and he didn’t disappear.

He was there. He said it. After all this time, he _finally_ said what she needed to hear.

Was it enough? Could she forgive him, or was the mistrust too great?

Could she accept his apology? Could she accept his love? Could she accept him?

“I didn’t stop you because I didn’t know what I could promise you. I didn’t know if I could be the husband you wanted or give you the family you hoped for, and I know you still want that. So, if I’m not…” Ethan trailed off before he could finish with ‘ _enough_.’

“I don’t know,” Charlie confessed, and she swore she could hear his heart shatter through the phone.

“Oh…” Ethan swallowed heavily, “That’s okay.”

“It is?” she breathed.

“I still love you, Charlie, even if I’m not what you want.”

“I…” Charlie began to panic, “I have to go.”

“What-“ Ethan asked, only to be cut off by the sharp end of the call.

It was Charlie’s turn to run. It was Charlie’s turn to fail to say it back. It was Charlie’s turn to stare at the ceiling and lament her broken heart.

And it was Charlie’s turn to change her mind.

It couldn’t have been more than an hour.

Probably even less than 45 minutes before she knew.

It was enough.

He was enough.

No matter what he could give, she wanted to see him try. She wanted to try for herself.

She wanted Ethan.

And the magical thing about knowing was that she didn’t have to sit under the weight of indecision anymore. She didn’t have to waste time.

The moment she knew, she ran.

Just like that, she was a girl running through Boston for the snarly grump who effortlessly captured her affection, but now, she knew he loved her, too.

Nine years after meeting Ethan Ramsey, she stood at his front door. She stood at the beginning, and though she couldn’t predict the ending, it was enough to try anyway.

Any bit of doubt disappointed as Ethan opened his front door.

Because, for the first time, they’d both taken the leap.

Maybe he didn’t chase her to the airport in a dramatic display of his love, but he loved her anyway. And that was enough.


End file.
